'Yet it did seem ... as if fantastic hope could take as strong a hold as Fact' - Hard Times

Thursday, 18 October 2012

THE DAY I MET MY HERO

I get off the
Overground at South Hampstead and it immediately starts pissing it down. I’m
slightly late so I think about running, but I’ve got three layers on – a lot
for an unreconstructed Northumbrian – and I don’t want to be sweaty and florid
for the big man.

Predictably,
when I get to Abbey Road, I’m the first one there. Catriona the Warner PR lass
meets me after a short while in the reception. She’s clearly a bit music-biz, a
bit ersatz, but frankly, because of her base of friendliness and the fact that
she’s not a 40+ man, she will seem more and more like a paragon of human
decency as the next hour unfolds. The next person I’m introduced to, I’m never
quite sure who he is. He could be the head of Warner, he could be the producer
of the album, he could be the studio owner or Johnny’s manager. It doesn’t
matter much. Because he looks and is dressed very similarly to Bill Nighy (Bill
Nighy in, well, anything), I’m going
to call him Bill, which is almost unquestionably not his name. Bill is in his
forties, is wearing an expensive black suit with a black shirt underneath, and
has one of those Stones-y haircuts which make me thank Sir Mick of Jagger I
don’t live in Manchester any more.

We
head up to a small room on the second floor. When I daydream of Abbey Road, I
think of the stock stuff: the Summer of Love, visions of the Beatles bursting
into immaculate 3-part harmonies at the pinnacle of the twentieth century,
Ringo eating a Chinese takeaway in the corner, that sort of thing. This room,
however, looks like a basement in a sixth-form college in Stoke [no offence,
Ms. Weston]. It must be less than 15 feet wide and 7 or 8 feet deep. There
appears to be some sort of Blur box-set on a shelf on one side of the room
(like, ew), and on the other is one
of those tacky posterboard things, you know, the ones you buy from the pound
shop that usually have a fuzzy picture of Al Pacino in Scarface on the front. This one has a picture of The Smiths on it,
along with the words “The Smiths” in comic sans. (Only joking about the comic
sans, but you get the idea.)

I
ask Bill if I can record the interview, like The Quietus has asked me to.

“Oh
no. This isn’t an interview you
know”.

“Ah.
What is it then?”

“It’s
just a chance to listen to some tracks from Johnny’s new album and hang out
with him!” Catriona says, with bubbles.

“Ah.
No problem”. Follows an awkward pause.

“Sit
anywhere you like,” Bill says finally. “The other journalists should be here
soon, and Johnny’s just having a spot of lunch.” Which other journalists? I
think to myself. What is this?

I
decide to sit in the chair in the corner.

“Don't
sit in that chair! That’s my chair. Sit anywhere, except there.” I literally
laugh at Bill when he says this, but he doesn’t laugh back.

The other music
journalists arrive about twenty minutes late, conspicuously dry after their
taxi journeys from central London. Roger Fluellen Johnson from The Observer is in his forties, is
wearing a trendy suit, and has one of those Stones-y haircuts too. Mike
Thompson from Mojo is in his forties,
is wearing an expensive suit, and has one of those Stones-y … you get the
picture. Johnny arrives and he looks exactly like all the other guys, I’m
afraid to say. Is this the man who wrote “Please Please Please (Let Me Get What
I Want)”? I find it difficult to countenance the idea.

Over
the next half hour we are treated to seven songs played at ear-splitting volume
from the forthcoming album, which nobody
outside the room has heard before. Apparently the record company people
were blown away when they first heard
these works-in-progress, and thought: we
really have to play these to other people. It seem that that’s where the idea for this “thing” came
from (no-one else seems to know what it is either) – we just really wanted to share these songs. I find it
interesting that the “other people” they want to share the tracks with just so
happen to be representatives of the major music press publications (plus,
inexplicably, me), but I keep my mouth shut.

The
seven songs are, without exception, unutterably lifeless, detumescent dad rock.
The third one is, I suppose, not that bad. It could almost be by Wild Nothing
or Real Estate (ie. bands who sound a bit like The Smiths in a decorative,
2012-hipster sort of way). But the rest is unequivocally awful, like Oasis but
much, much worse, replete with lyrics like “I wanna leave town” and “lookin’
through my eyes now” and “wakin’ up
in the sun now” (it’s always a bad
sign when lyricists put “now” at the end of a line just to fill out the
scansion).

At
the end of the seventh song, Bill leans over to the mixing desk, and
theatrically turns the volume knob right down, to signal the end of the
performance. We clap enthusiastically (even me - hell, what can a brother do?).
Follows a long discourse from Johnny and the record company people about where
the record “came from”, which is so heartbreakingly boring I won’t recount it.

The
assembled journos each take turns to say very bland, positive stuff about the
songs. At one point Mike Thompson from Mojo
pipes up, “It’s almost Smithsy, in parts.” The faces of the record company
people fall flat. This is not the right thing to say, it seems.

Bill
interjects: “Hmm, yeah, we thought that at first. But then we thought,
actually, it’s not so much Smithsy as … Johnny. It’s actually just Johnny.”
Everyone murmurs eager assent, and the conversation is wrapped up. We get our
coats and pile out of Abbey Road.

“Goodbye
Alex. Take care now”, says Johnny, as I head down the steps and out onto the
waterlogged street.